Is the recession on the verge of being over?

09:25 09 May 2014

File photo dated 06/03/14 of the Bank of England in London, as rate-setters will announce their latest decision amid growing pressure for action to cool a rising housing market. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Thursday May 8, 2014. Policymakers are regarded as certain to leave the cost of borrowing on hold for now and have said they would rather use other tools to cool any property bubble before hiking rates. But signs of an accelerating recovery have added to speculation that they may have to rise earlier than expected in order to cool inflationary pressures. The Bank rate has been at the historic low of 0.5% for more than five years to try to nurse the economy back to health. With the recovery gathering pace, policymakers have made clear they want to see more of the "spare capacity" in the economy taken up before any increase, leading to expectations of a first rise in the spring of next year. But there is growing speculation that some members of the nine-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) may be s

The recession that has gripped the UK for six years is on the verge of being over after a leading economic body said the economy is almost back to its pre-financial crisis peak.

Growth will exceed its 2008 high in the next few months, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) said in a report today.

The institute predicts that gross domestic product (GDP) will grow by 2.9% this year, an increase of 0.4% on its estimate of just three months ago.

Forecasts for 2015 through to 2017 are about 2.4%, although GDP per capita remains well below its previous peak and is not expected to exceed that before 2017.

Jonathan Portes, director of NIESR, told The Times: “The end of the Great Recession, it is an important moment. The British economy is very close to being bigger than it has ever been.

“Symbolically, that matters, and it comes at a time when growth is clearly entrenched.”

His colleague Jack Meaning, a research fellow at the institute, added: “We are incredibly close to the pre-recession peak. Whether we make it in the April estimate will be a matter of 0.1%.”

Growth accelerated rapidly after the marginal gains of 2012, NIESR said, and is now running at around 3% year-on-year.

But while wage levels are also expected to grow this year in real terms, they remain around 6% below what they were in 2009 - ground that is not expected to be made up until at least 2018.

Unemployment rates are also improving, falling by 1% over the last year. NIESR said it expects unemployment to average around 6.5% this year before dropping to close to 6% from 2015.

But despite the robust rise in employment, productivity growth has fallen.

“Even the return of GDP growth, however, has not yet resulted in significant productivity increases,” the report said.

Yesterday the Bank of England announced it was keeping interest rates at their historic low of 0.5%, a level they have been at for more than five years while the Bank tried to nurse the economy back to health.

It also left the scale of its quantitative easing programme to boost the money supply unchanged at £375 billion.

The Bank will update its own forecasts for GDP growth and inflation at its quarterly inflation report next week.

Meanwhile, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has hiked its UK growth forecast to 3.2% and sounded a warning that action may be needed to cool the housing market.

Figures from Halifax showing a second consecutive month-on-month fall in house prices in April - though they were 8.5% up year-on-year - looked likely to ease concerns about an overheating market.

On the basis of current monetary policy, the NIESR said it expected public sector finances to be in surplus by 2018-19.

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